package edu.kit.csl.pisa.io;

/*
This file is part of the PISA Alignment Tool.

Copyright (C) 2013
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
Cognitive Systems Lab (CSL)
Felix Stahlberg

PISA is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.

PISA is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with PISA. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
*/

import edu.kit.csl.pisa.models.AlignmentModel;

/**
 * This class uses the GoF design pattern Abstract Factory. For each different
 * possible value of the parameter initialModelLoader there is a subclass of this
 * class, which is then able to load the initial model from initialModelPath.
 */
public interface ModelFactory {

	/**
	 * This is a factory method (GoF design pattern) which produces model
	 * instances. The strategies of loading it differ among the implementing
	 * subclasses, but the location of the resources have to be stored in the 
	 * parameter initialModelPath.
	 * 
	 * @param name the name of the created model
	 * @return an alignment model loaded from initialModelPath 
	 */
	AlignmentModel createModel(String name);
}
